Every End Has A Beginning....

Well today has been interesting. I woke up at 3:30 am with contractions that were coming every 5-10 minutes. I wasn't worried about it until I looked at the clock and realized it had been going on for an hour and a half and I was having really bad back pain-not the normal 'I've been carrying Huxley too much' pain but pain that I hadn't felt since Huxley's birth. That kind of scared me. Todd gave me a Priesthood blessing and I tried some other things to help things calm down. Normally I wouldn't have worried but being a 12 hour plane ride away from where I want to give birth and only being 31 5/7 weeks along puts a little kink in things. Well long story short everything is ok and we're just going to take it day-by-day and I'm hoping that we can stay with our original plan of me coming down to Utah March 18 after our Branch Temple trip in Anchorage. Anyways-the reason I'm writing this is because I realized how hard it is right now for me to imagine my little family of 3 turning into 4. After Huxley woke up we brought him into our room like we usually do on the weekends since Todd is home and he jumped on our bed and laughed and laughed. I started crying thinking that this would be our last day as our little family jumping on the bed and being goofy (that was before we had seen our NP and decided it would be ok for me to stay in Barrow). There were a few other times today that I had those same thoughts. Don't get me wrong it will be great to have another little kiddo-it'll just be different. I'll get used to it. And it is the ending of our little family but I know it's also the beginning of more great memories like us jumping on the bed every Saturday and Sunday morning.

Another ending was when Todd was released today as the Seminary teacher. Kind of weird. I try/tried to be patient with the calling and I think I did a pretty good job but I didn't realize how attached I was to the calling and it wasn't even mine! I'm crazy I know! Maybe it's because I'm pregnant. Anyways. It'll be weird having my husband around more-not that he wasn't with the calling but he did study/plan for Seminary a lot and it'll be different having him home and not have to say 'what do you want to do before you need to start doing Seminary stuff?'. Like right now Huxley is in bed and this is the time Todd usually prepares-I don't think he knows what to do with himself! :) And tomorrow when the alarm goes off at 6:15 am I won't have to listen to him hit snooze 4 times before we actually get out bed. Also, I get a car now-Todd has always had the car since he'd pick the boys up and do Seminary and then go to school after. That means I'm mobile now. What the? I can leave during the day now? I don't know if I'll have the courage to! I always leave the house with Todd-I might be too scared to go out by myself. I'm kidding! But it will be different! I'm glad he had that calling though. I think it helped our family grow and Todd grow in ways it probably wouldn't have if he hadn't of been called to be the Seminary teacher when we moved up here. I guess that's why we have callings though right? To learn and grow and then we get released. Hmm...I should learn what I need to for my calling....I'm also kidding!!!! This is another ending but it'll be the beginning of something else!

Well that's it!

P.S. Todd wants me to write something for him....

What is a mother's favorite crime?????

A good kidnapping!!!

He's pretty proud of himself. He came up with that 'all by myself, just barely'! :) So that's what he's going to be doing now instead of preparing for Seminary! Hahahaha oh wow!

Out Of Commission...

Well....as you can see we are in week #4 of January and there's only one blog post. Really I was doing good! I have two more written....it's just that my computer is well kind of throwing a tantrum right now. My charger went out on it 2 weeks ago and in good ole Barrow fashion....the mail is taking forever to get my replacement here! So anyways! I really am still trying to keep my goal going-it's kind of frustrating when your whole life is on one single machine and then that little machine decides to freak out.

So...that's it for now! Just an update-the kiddo is still inside me, Huxley is still a little spit fire, Todd is staying crazy busy and I've started my internship for my certificate which has been a bit of a change of pace for the family.

Ta-Ta!!

A New Year....

Alright! So it's a New Year! I'm not really sure why everyone makes New Year's Resolutions-I mean they're very good to have but I've always found myself only doing well with them for a month at the most. So....I've resorted to just making goals one at a time throughout the year and working on it as hard as I can instead of starting out with a list of a hundred things I want to do this year. However, there are some things that I want to start at the beginning of this year and go with through the whole year. Like.....the blog! For some reason I just haven't been able to do well with the blog. Our brother in-law, Bryan, gave his wife Janelle a book of her blog this year for Christmas. I thought it was AWESOME! I want that someday! And looking at our blog....it would probably make a 10 page book! So I want to do better this year.....so my goal is to once a week do a rundown of the week. Definitely do-able!

So here we go! Week #1 of 2012! Hahaha only 51 to go right!?

This week has been good. We returned from Utah a day before school started so that was nice. We were able to all just hang out and take it easy for a day. IT WAS SO NICE! It's exhausting visiting family! I was thinking that the traveling on the airplanes would be the most tiring parts of the trip but nope! It's worth the exhaustion though to spend time with family! It's also nice that our families live so close so we're able to bounce around and be with everyone for a lot of our trips down. It probably didn't help that we were all sick during our visit and being pregnant doesn't help with the being tired either.

So this week.....the scariest thing that happened was when Huxley woke up a few hours after going to bed crying and barely being able to breathe. It scared me pretty bad! I didn't want to take him in to the hospital though because of the horror stories I've heard so Huxley and I had a sleepover in our extra bedroom so I could hear his breathing. (he's kind of a wild sleeper and I wanted Todd to sleep well so he wouldn't be tired at work so that's why we slept there) Our friend Jenna let us borrow their humidifier and a Vick's plug-in which worked wonders for him. I knew it was croup by the way he sounded so I was worried but not too bad that I didn't trust myself watching him through the night. The next morning I called my mom and she listened to him and she said I should probably get him an appointment so I called our Nurse Practitioner and she saw him and confirmed my croup suspicions and prescribed some medication (that of course the hospital didn't have in so we had to wait another day for it and then when we finally got it the dosage scared me so I ended up not giving it to him-maybe I shouldn't have gone to nursing school!) Well he's doing great now-just lots of snot and junky coughing!

The best thing that happened this week was when Todd was coming home from school and one of our neighbors has been remodeling their home. When he drove by they had put ALL of their cupboards and cabinets outside-some by their house still and some by the garbage. He came home and told me and asked if I was ok if he picked them up since they are the same as ours right now and we could finally get some cupboard doors in our kitchen. I said that was fine and we went and asked if we could take them. The guy said the ones by the garbage were fine to take (there were only two though) and the one's by his house were going to be his daughters (there was like a whole kitchen and bathroom). Anyways we grabbed the garbage ones and that was it. The next day we were grocery shopping and we saw the guy and he said we could come by and get the rest of the cabinets and cupboards!!!!!!!! What?!?! Todd had mentioned we could put them in the utility room before we found out that they were already in someone's name and then I said yeah we could put them there or we could put them in the addition and Todd said 'oh yeah I didn't even think of that'. What?! Todd wasn't thinking of the addition?! That's all he thinks about! Anyways now we have a FULL set of cabinets and cupboards that we can put in our addition which will save us about $5ooo!! Wahoo!! We are so blessed!! It's a great feeling too because it seems like everything is standing in the way of the addition and it makes me second guess wondering if we had misinterpreted the answer we got when praying about it. But when great things (no matter how big or small they are) happen at random times it reminds me that 'yeah we made the right decision and it'll be worth all the struggles in the end'.

The sweetest thing that happened was on the day when Todd went back to school. It's so great having breaks and getting Todd's undivided attention during those breaks but it's a hard transition when he needs to go back to work. I always just thought it was hard on me...nope! Poor Huxley walked around from room to room playing and always called out 'Dad', 'Dada', 'Daaaaaaaaaaad'. It was cute but I felt bad for him and so we looked at pictures of Todd and I tried to distract him. Well, when it was time for Todd to come home we were in Huxley's room playing and he was lying on his stomach reading a book and then Todd came in the house. Kali (our cat) makes a lot of noise sometimes so Huxley kind of just sat there and listened for a second and then Todd made a bigger noise when putting his stuff on the ground and then Huxley yelled/squealed 'Dad!' and jumped up as fast as he could and ran down the hallway squealing/screeching as loud as he could and practically jumped into Todd's arms! Then he just sat there with the BIGGEST smile and hugged him. It was so precious and cute! Oh I just love thinking about it right now! :)

Now on to the picture stuff! I wish it was more quick and easy to download pictures. Any suggestions?

One of our favorite things to do while down in Utah. We don't have stairs in Barrow so I'm not quite sure how he learned so fast! He's good about waiting for help to come back down or going down on his tummy too! How did I get so lucky on that one?! We only had two somersaults down the stairs!

The McMahons! It was so fun to have them here for Christmas this year! It had been a LONG time since we'd seen them! Todd likes 'candid' pictures better so he mostly gets pictures of people not looking at the camera.

Baba and our feast!! Yum!! We're so lucky to have such a great guy as our Grampa!

Hmmm where is Todd-oh behind the camera right! We need to get better about having us ALL in pictures together! Don't worry about the 'no pants' he gets hot and it was especially warm in Utah!

Cousin Stephie! Huxley loved having so many cousins around! I wish I had gotten my mom's camera and got the pictures she had taken. She has a lot more of everyone! We had fun at my family's house! The McMahons came from North Carolina this year so my mom got to have ALL 5 kids at her house this year! How fun right? Yup it was!

These two pictures are for Todd. He took this first one with us noticing and then the second one he did it without us knowing and said it's 'the perfect pregnant picture'. I'm 26 weeks in these!

All the 'kids' (I'm pretty sure I only see a few kids in the picture) at G & G Henke's house. Lots of fun we are so blessed to have such great family!! Huxley was so tired but held up so well! Yes my husband has Huxley by his feet....hahahaha oh what a kiddo!

I was trying to convince him to go and open some presents! Hahaha! Maybe I should have enjoyed his sitting still for the moment because the rest of the day he would be EVERYWHERE! Trying to open EVERONE'S gifts!

Slightly confused little boy! And yes I am wearing 'footy' pajamas. You should definitely try them! SO COMFY!! :)

Christmas Morning at the Henke's! Bright and early too! Poor Huxley-he was sound asleep so I walked upstairs with him in my arms and as soon as he heard everyone he was wide awake....and confused! :) Spencer and Maren even spent the night so everyone was there!!!

Somehow we missed gettin Huxley in there! This can be our 'Anniversary' picture since I'm not sure we got one that day-I'm pretty sure we didn't change much in the two days between them anyways! Happy 3 Years!!! :)

This one is for you mom! :)

See we can take a 'normal' picture! :)

Stephie, Me and Kristina-all 5 kids and their families went down and saw the lights together-so fun!! And yes I'm wearing my parka that I made! :) And yes it was STINKIN hot!!!

My Little Cutie! :)

Hmmmmm that wasn't too hard! I can do this! :)

And the result is.....

Updates from the Top of the World

Weather on the Slope

Barrow, AK

	-16°F Fair Feels Like: -38°F Humidity: 79% Wind: ENE 13 mph Hour-by-hour | 10-day

Here's our beaten up child! He always has a goose-egg on his forehead. No I don't beat my child. He's kind of cute. He's really heavy too. Ugh!

Huxley and a little girl named Aliyah 'shared' their birthday party! Aliyah turned two 3 days after Huxley turned one and we have a lot of the same friends so it was perfect!! It was funny....Aliyah and Huxley didn't really know to blow the candles out so all the little girls you see in the picture ended up blowing the candles out before they could figure it out! We had lots of fun though. I was sure tired by the end!! It's amazing the toll pregnancy takes on a body!

Here's our little 'Charlie Brown' Christmas tree! Our first one!! We've never lived together during the holidays between Halloween and Christmas so I've never decorated and it's been fun! We found this tree at the second hand store for like 50 cents!! We don't have any ornaments up here either-thank goodness for construction paper, glue sticks and popcorn! Except Huxley has eaten most of the popcorn off of the tree now. I also made Applesauce Cinnamon ornaments and he's managed to eat at least a bite out of most of them. Oh kiddo! Oh and yes I do dress my kid in clothes that are too small for him sometimes. Don't judge me. Oh and yes we do have boards over our windows. We're really not as white-trash as we sound! Promise! :)

Here's our little dinosaur on Halloween. Better late than never! :) He's cute huh!

Well it's about time for another update right?! Yeah I think so! Let's see!

• Todd has officially finished his first semester of his MBA...Wahoo!
  
• Todd will finish the first semester of teaching this Friday....another BIG wahoo!!
• Huxley has four teeth on his bottom and I'm pretty sure all four molars (both top and both bottom) are trying to come in.....poor kiddo!
• I'm just about 6 months pregnant....yeah for being in the 3rd trimester!
• We find out what we're having in one week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• I finished my crazy semester of school-going to school full time is tough once it's not the only thing you're doing! And I got a 4.0. Thank you, thank you! :)
• We had our first Thanksgiving all by ourselves. Todd was in charge of the turkey and I was in charge of everything else. I won't lie it turned out WAY good! I think it's because no one else was coming over! Oh and my mom probably won't like my saying this but we even ate Thanksgiving dinner in our jammies! Oh yeah!
• Todd and I have officially made it through our first year of living together the ENTIRE year! Not bad except we've been married for three years now! We still plan on staying married too! :)

I think that's about it! We stay busy, busy, busy!!! We leave for Utah on Sunday night and get there on Monday. Such fun! Especially now that we have a rambunctious kiddo. I'm hoping he'll sleep a lot of it but we'll see!

Being A Mother....

is HARD!
It's been the most rewarding,
fun,
frustrating,
enjoyable,
spiritual
experience I've had.

A few nights ago after putting Huxley to bed I came out and looked around the house. I wish I had a picture but at the same time I know your opinion of me would change if you saw the condition of my house! It was awful. Todd asked if a hurricane came through. I replied that a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake and a 1-year old made their way through the house. Yeah it was that bad.

I loved it though.

I wouldn't want my house in any other condition right then. There were food crumbs on the floor. Boxes from the post office spread around. Toys everywhere, books all over. The only thing I could think of was my little boy had been taken care of that evening. He had food to eat, he had toys to play with, he was warm, he had a parent home with him all night, not a babysitter.

I knew motherhood would be hard but I never knew how much I would grow and learn from it. I'm so grateful to be a woman and that I have the opportunity to be a mother and raise my children in the Gospel. I always said I wanted to stay at home with my children but I never realized what a great blessing that is to have a husband who wants the same thing.

Sometimes I lose my patience and it's so discouraging. It's hard to know how to teach a little one. Sometime I feel like I'm not doing enough. This is a great talk that I like to read when I start feeling like that. Being a mom is what women are born to do. It's exactly what we're supposed to be doing with our time. I'm so glad I've realized this early on so that I haven't missed what's most important right now.

I know this isn't a normal 'picture/update post' but I know there are moms who read this and they probably feel the same way I do sometimes and I hope they go and read this talk. It really is a good one and it just makes you feel good all over! :) Oh and you don't have to be a mom to read it! :)

Who is this kid and what have you done with my baby!?

WARNING: THIS IS A REALLY LONG POST! IT'S WAY OVERDUE THOUGH SO THAT'S WHY THERE IS SO MUCH! I'M SORRY!
This is my most recent picture of our kiddo. Notice that everything is pulled out of cupboards or the cupboards are just open. Yup. That's his favorite past time! He also likes croutons-he opens the box when I'm not looking and takes the bag out and grabs some. He must be my child!

This is at the Wellness Center-I went there for a Breastfeeding Awareness Activity and while I was in getting some info he had walked out to the play area and was playing! Haha! It was so cute! He just went all by himself and about 15 minutes later he came back and found me and sat with me for about a minute and then got down and went back out again. Todd had walked over from the school and found him playing and got this picture of him. Such a cute, brave little kid!

I wouldn't really put this on the blog but Todd wants me to and he made sure to take a picture of me with the bread so I should put it on here! But anyways! This is some totally awesome bread I made for Sunday dinner. It was really easy and it looks way cool! I know some of you won't believe it but I am slowly but surely turning into a cook-ask my husband! :)

Out at the last football game! It was pretty fun and Huxley like walking around in a snow suit!

Huxley loves his dad! His favorite time of day is when he comes home from work. Aren't my boys cute?

Food time is the best right now! He just loves to get all messy and dirty! I love it too! ;)

I love these pictures! I wish we had a picture of the clock but these were taken at 6:30 pm. He was out! I officially felt like the worst mom ever-my kid falls asleep in his high chair in the middle of a bite!

This picture totally reminds me of a model picture-all he needs is longer hair and a fan! Haha I'm kidding! I just think it's funny!

He is so fun to watch eat! He loves crossing his legs over each other and then curling them up on one side. SO CUTE! He loves his daddy too (that's who he's smiling at).

HUGE carrots that came in the box one week. He loved chewing on them! Notice the huge cucumber on the floor? I made way good pickles out of it! YUM!

Huxley LOVES it when we get our produce box during the week. He'll sit right down by it until I open it and then he goes right ahead and opens it and proceeds to take everything out and has to inspect every single piece that's in there-yes we have lots of bite marks on different fruit throughout the week! :)

This is a polar bear Todd went out to see one night. They do exist I guess! I still haven't seen one!

Such a cutie isn't he? This is his mischief face-it's pretty funny when he does it.

I know, I know, about time right? I've been thinking about posting for awhile and then I started to wonder why I haven't been posting. I mean I have the internet at home now-what else do I need. Then I remembered.....it's not that I don't want to post or something, it's that I don't have time to do it! So what are we spending all our time on up here in the Arctic?

• Well we do have an incredibly high energy infant who thinks he's a toddler. He's into everything and I mean everything! He started walking October 25th-the real no-hand on furniture thing. So he was about 10 1/2 months. Crazy I know. And it's been a rat race trying to keep up with him ever since! A lot of people comment on how he's walking early and they feel bad for me-yeah it's harder but at the same time so much easier. He's so much happier now that he can move around, he's gained a lot of self-confidence too, which helps him be brave and venture out on his own so I'm not always needing to be by him. He's also SUCH a great napper now that he wears himself out! He's sleeping about 13 1/2 hours each night (and not just a lucky night here and there, it's every night!-hey it took us 10 1/2 months to get there but we made it!) and then takes an 1 1/2 hour morning nap and 1 1/2 to 2 hour nap in the afternoon. Yeah I think people should feel bad for me now that he's walking! :) Just kidding! We've been very blessed to have such a healthy, alert, baby boy. He's not my baby anymore! I can't believe he's grown up! At the same time I can though. My mom always comments on how he wasn't a baby very long. Since Todd is such a great husband and father and we have been so blessed that I've been able to stay at home from Day 1 with Huxley, I feel like I haven't missed anything and the time he was a baby was very, very enjoyable but I think he was in the phase just long enough! I quite enjoy my little interactive, jokester we have on our hands now-a-days! He currently is growing a mouthful of teeth-it scares me. I've gotten so used to just the two little teeth on the bottom! About two weeks ago all four teeth decided to come in on top, however, the top right middle tooth has decided to go back under for the time being so he just has the 3 top teeth-I think he just wanted to be a live jack-o-lantern since we aren't able to have those in Barrow without spending a fortune! How lucky are we?! We don't even have to throw him away after a week or so! We get to keep our little pumpkin we've worked so hard on! :) His favorite words right now are 'Dada' and 'Mom' and 'Yeah'. He nods his head for yes most of the time but if we keep asking the same question he'll say 'yeah' in a tone that just says, 'hello, can you not see my head nodding?' He's super funny! He likes to laugh, especially at himself. He'll walk up and down the hall putting whatever he can over his head-clothes, a book, a blanket and then walk and if he falls or walks into the wall (since he can't see) he'll chuckle and get up and keep going but if he makes it all the way to the end of the hall without doing either he'll squeal and really laugh! Oh it's funny! He loves the older kiddos up here. He wants to be just like them and part of everything they're doing. It's fun to watch but I get the weirdest feeling watching and I just want to go help him do everything and help him not fall. Wow this has already turned into a long post. Anyways. As you can see this kid is a great big, wonderful handful! He has his days, and nights-especially those teething times, ugh-but I know it's worth it and I'm glad to have the Eternal perspective so that I can know without a doubt that it's all worth it.
• As for Todd and I. Well we're both full-time students (Todd's in his Master's program and I'm doing a Medical Coding program) Trying to make the best of life up here with what we have. It's been a good experience for us-looking back at where we started almost three years ago we've come leaps and bounds on so many things. We try and wonder what life would have been like if we had followed our original plan of sticking around Cache Valley until we were both done with school-it would have been very different, but I don't think it would even compare to the life we have now. It's funny how Heavenly Father works isn't it? We think we know so much about what He wants for us and try and plan around what we think He wants and somehow one little thing will change in your plan and you'll end up in a completely different place but with so much more faith and so many other blessings. Not that your plan was bad but Heavenly Father's is just that much better. Amazing isn't it? I think so.
• Speaking of plans. Around this time of year lots of people start asking what we're planning on doing-if we plan on sticking around in Barrow, or finding another teaching job. As of right now, we plan on sticking around!! We are still enjoying it up here and we still feel like we're in 'the right place at the right time' so why move somewhere else? We do plan on having......
  

ANOTHER BABY!!!!

• Our newest little one will be arriving sometime in early April. Many people look at us like we're crazy when we say we don't know the exact due date. Well I am still nursing Huxley and when you nurse-the rest of your body doesn't work the way it's supposed to. Well now that I've said that you're probably thinking that this little one was an accident. Well we're married-I don't think there are 'accidents' once you get married-come on people you know what you're doing. So anyways! I won't go into any detail since it doesn't matter. But we went to the Temple this past summer and were trying to decide what to do about family planning and we just felt like we should just keep going as we are and a few months later....we're having a baby! :) Huxley is really excited! He is going to be such a good big brother! We have a little girl in our Branch her name is Saryn (Jenna I hope you're ok with me posting about her) and Huxley loves to be by her! He gives her kisses and tries to eat her feet and tries to climb in and sit with her while she's in her car seat. He likes her a lot! I'm kind of excited though because maybe they'll grow up and get married! YEAH!! But he will be such a good big brother and I almost can't wait for the baby to come just for that reason-but for other reasons (like no sleeping, LOTS of diapers, and two kiddos needing my full attention) I can wait as long as the baby needs!
  
• So that's another reason why I haven't posted. This pregnancy started out the same-pretty sick all of the time. With Huxley that ended at 10 weeks, well I think I'm about 17 weeks now and I'm still sportin the sick feeling. Bummer. So when I have a chance I usually am trying to catch up on housework-it's amazing how that piles up or lying down on the couch trying to feel better. Speaking of lying down, I did ok with Huxley not getting a nap during the day. I would just go to sleep really early during those first few weeks. With this pregnancy, I'm just barely starting to be able to make it through the day without a little 10-20 minute nap. I still sometimes find myself sleeping while Huxley is looking at books. Bad mom I know. I try hard though to stay awake! I promise! I also go to bed oh say around 8:30 pm when Todd is preparing his Seminary lesson for the next morning...on the couch. That thing is deadly I think. If I sit on it I'm pretty much a goner. Todd's been great about it all though. He tries to help me as best as he can. But, I don't attribute my extra tiredness all to the pregnancy-I have Huxley I'm trying to keep up with and school work and just being a wife and keeping a house takes a lot out of you. But if you've ever been pregnant then you know it does wipe you out. Also, if you've ever nursed a baby you know that it pretty much sucks the life right out of you. If you've ever done both at the same time.....you probably know exactly how tired I am! :)
  

Well as you can see. I do have good excuses for not posting. I am sorry that I haven't posted about a lot of fun things that have happened but just know that we are doing well and 'no news is good news'.

Well I think that's all folks! Enjoy the videos! :)
P.S. Sorry about the quality. I had posted them all-and if you live in Barrow you know how long it takes to upload things-and then noticed how bad they were. Just deal with it I guess! :) Oh and they are really long-I put them on here mostly for our mothers to watch! :) So I won't be offended if you don't watch them!